Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" The soul of man is one of those subtle and evanescent substances that, as long as they remain still, the organ of sight does not remark; it must become agitated to become visible. "
William Godwin
Man
Sight
Soul
Related Quotes:
" It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn. "
William Godwin
Importance
Learn
One Thing
" Since it is one of the great attributes of our species to be susceptible of improvement and capable of experiencing the most beneficial changes, for this reason what are vulgarly called 'venerable establishments' will often range themselves in opposition to the best interests of the community. "
William Godwin
Best
Improvement
Great
" What is there so offensive to which habit has not the power to reconcile us? "
William Godwin
Habit
Reconcile
Power
" Religion is the most important of all things: the great point of discrimination that divides the man from the brute. It is our special prerogative that we can converse with that which we cannot see and believe in that the existence of which is reported to us by none of our senses. "
William Godwin
Great
Believe
Man
" Invisible things are the only realities; invisible things alone are the things that shall remain. "
William Godwin
Alone
Invisible
Only
" Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands, and perpetuate its institutions. "
William Godwin
Education
Government
Will
" How nations and races of men are to be so governed as may be most conducive to the improvement and happiness of all is one of the most interesting questions that can be offered to our consideration. "
William Godwin
Men
Interesting
Improvement
" Religion is among the most beautiful and most natural of all things - that religion which 'sees God in clouds and hears Him in the wind,' which endows every object of sense with a living soul, which finds in the system of nature whatever is holy, mysterious and venerable, and inspires the bosom with sentiments of awe and veneration. "
William Godwin
God
Clouds
Nature
" God is a being who is himself the cause of his own existence. His prerogative is to perceive before there was anything to be perceived. He is the creator of the universe; He operated upon nothing and turned it into something. "
William Godwin
Existence
Universe
Own
" I know nothing worth the living for but usefulness and the service of my fellow-creatures. The only object I pursue is to increase, as far as lies in my power, the quantity of their knowledge and goodness and happiness. "
William Godwin
Knowledge
Power
Happiness
" What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name. "
William Godwin
Life
Merit
Name
" Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire. "
William Godwin
Desire
Active
Influence
" In the two novels I have published, it was my fortune at different times, and from different persons, to hear the most unqualified censure long before it was possible for me to hear the voice of the public. But my temper was not altered, nor my courage subdued. "
William Godwin
Possible
Long
Courage
" There is reverence that we owe to everything in human shape. "
William Godwin
Owe
Human
Everything
" My temper is of a recluse and contemplative cast; had it been otherwise, I should, perhaps, on some former occasions, have entered into the active concerns of the world and not have been connected with it merely as a writer of books. "
William Godwin
Connected
Books
Active
" There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers; we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness. "
William Godwin
Room
Imagination
Exercise
" Enthusiasm is always an interesting spectacle. When it expresses itself with an honest and artless eloquence, it is difficult to listen to it and not, in some degree, to catch the flame. "
William Godwin
Interesting
Enthusiasm
Flame
" To diminish the cases in which the assistance of others is felt absolutely necessary is the only genuine road to independence. "
William Godwin
Road
Genuine
Independence
" We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity. "
William Godwin
Capacity
Think
Power
" What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child? "
William Godwin
More
Parent
Love
" It is necessary for him who would endure existence with patience that he should conceive himself to be something - that he should be persuaded he is not a cipher in the muster-roll of man. "
William Godwin
Endure
Patience
Man
" Soundness of understanding is connected with freedom of enquiry; consequently, opinion should, as far as public security will admit, be exempted from restraint. "
William Godwin
Opinion
Admit
Freedom
" The value of a man is in his intrinsic qualities: in that of which power cannot strip him and which adverse fortune cannot take away. That for which he is indebted to circumstances is mere trapping and tinsel. "
William Godwin
Circumstances
Value
Power
" When the calamity we feared is already arrived, or when the expectation of it is so certain as to shut out hope, there seems to be a principle within us by which we look with misanthropic composure on the state to which we are reduced, and the heart sullenly contracts and accommodates itself to what it most abhorred. "
William Godwin
Expectation
Look
Hope
" I was brought up in great tenderness, and though my mind was proud to independence, I was never led to much independence of feeling. "
William Godwin
Mind
Independence
Great
" If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak. "
William Godwin
Who
Strong
Me
" Innocence is not virtue. Virtue demands the active employment of an ardent mind in the promotion of the general good. No man can be eminently virtuous who is not accustomed to an extensive range of reflection. "
William Godwin
Innocence
Mind
Man
" In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question. "
William Godwin
Out
Understood
Question
" Let no man despise the oracles of books! A book is a dead man, a sort of mummy, embowelled and embalmed, but that once had flesh and motion and a boundless variety of determinations and actions. "
William Godwin
Book
Books
Dead
" Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason. "
William Godwin
Passion
Tranquil
Sober